Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey

Published June 11, 2019 by Avon

Average rating on Goodreads: 3.78 Stars

My Rating: 3/5 Stars

 

Synopsis:

After an injury ends Travis Ford’s major league baseball career, he returns home to start over. He just wants to hammer out his frustrations at his new construction gig and forget all about his glory days. But he can’t even walk through town without someone recapping his greatest hits. Or making a joke about his… bat. And then there’s Georgie, his buddy’s little sister, who is definitely not a kid anymore.

Georgette Castle has crushed on her older brother’s best friend for years. The grumpy, bear of a man working for her family’s house flipping business is a far cry from the charming sports star she used to know. But a moody scowl doesn’t scare her and Georgie’s determined to show Travis he’s more than a pretty face and a batting average, even if it means putting her feelings aside to be “just friends.”

Travis wants to brood in peace. But the girl he used to tease is now a funny, full-of-life woman who makes him feel whole again. And he wants her. So damn bad. Except Georgie’s off limits and he knows he can’t give her what she deserves. But she’s becoming the air he breathes and Travis can’t stay away, no matter how hard he tries…

My Review:

“Last time she was in this room, he’d still considered her kind of a pest. Stephen’s sleepy little sister. Now? She’d become the sexy temptation in his bedroom at an alarming rate.”

Fix Her Up was my first read by Tessa Bailey. From the moment I saw this book trending on Instagram, I knew I had to read it. This book just screams Summer Romance Reading so I went into it 100% persuaded I was beginning a new favorite book with each page.

What kept this book from being a new favorite was the overly dramatic hitting over the head reminders that the  “brother’s friend” trope was keeping Georgie and Travis from acting on their feelings. This is one of my favorite tropes in romance but if done wrong, it can annoy the heck out of me. Up until about the 150’ish page mark, it was just too much.

Got it. Travis is friends with Stephen, Georgie’s brother but pretty much everyone in Georgie’s family refuses to acknowledge that she’s a 20 something and even Travis for a while until things become sexy between them, still looks at her like his ‘little sister,’ which is kind of creepy when things eventually turn sexy.

“For a while there I couldn’t walk two feet without tripping over you. Now nothing.”

I seriously cringed at all of the reminders that Georgia used to be this annoying kid. Like, stop bringing it up so much..she’s an entire adult now! Luckily at page 108 even Georgie is sick of it..

“Trust me, Travis Ford couldn’t care less if I go on a date. For some reason, he decided to show up and make me feel like an incompetent child.” Georgie swallowed hard. “And I’m really over people making me feel this way.”

The second half of this book was amazing. I loved it. It was sexy as hell. I loved the scenes where Georgie has time with her sister and friend Rosie which turns into a whole other thing that I hope we see more of in books to come, but despite all of that, the first half pissed me off so bad, the second half wasn’t strong enough alone to redeem it. I don’t like when an author doesn’t trust me as the reader to understand what they’re trying to convey. What Tessa Bailey did was constantly throw either actual dialogue out there between Travis and Georgie where he says something slick, to keep her in her place as ‘friends little sister,’ I’m not sure if more so for himself or for Georgie or have us in Travis’s head as he thinks these thoughts.

“They never should have been spending time together in the first place. This was exactly what he needed–a wake-up call. If Stephen knew they’d been hanging out, he’d deck him. Travis would deserve it, too. He’d apologize for missing the appointment next time she showed up to pester him. Then he’d send Georgie on her way. For good this time. Still, when he put his phone back in his pocket, the guilt and unease refused to fade.”

Then the book turns into a fake dating plot which to me felt like the brother’s friend trope which was heavy in the first half, couldn’t be written strong enough to Carry the book In its entirety.  I didn’t mind it too much because it added something new to the story but it was like shortly after we start the part of the book with this new plot, she quickly wraps up loose ends that wouldn’t be able to work with new trope and it just changed the pacing and honestly it felt like a whole new book.

A whole new book that I didn’t mind. The sex scenes were hot between Georgie and Travis. Travis was an okay hero and although this book was just okay to me, there is something about Georgie that I think will stick with me for a while. She reminds me of the girl from He’s Just Not That Into You for some reason. She was innocent, fun and still coming into her own..and still crushing on her childhood crush, finally getting the guy.

If you have read this book let’s chat about it. If you haven’t read it, I’d love for you to give it a try so we can chat about it. I am definitely excited to see where this new series goes, this one in particular just didn’t work for me.

xo.